


73000 Days Without an Accident

by Nox (Sheut)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game), Star Wars
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, aka "Nox finally does something about the sw au", emily shows up next chapter, hazard a guess as to who the third person mentioned is :)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 06:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10825629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheut/pseuds/Nox
Summary: Lena just wanted to eat her eggs and maybe be the first life form to fly an experimental teleporting X-Wing.She hadn't planned forthisPart of the Discord Star Wars Collection!





	73000 Days Without an Accident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can take the British out of the EU, but that also includes _all_ the EUs (and the AUs)

 

The muted glow of the Coruscant Undercity filtered through blinds, casting an orange hue on the dilapidated room. Light crept over floorboards and discarded clothes before travelling up and over a shabby bed. A holographic projector beeped on the small table beside the bed, displaying the time at the bottom and cycling through numerous holographs of one person with various other people - all with cheerful smiles on their faces. 

Lena Oxton slept, dead to the world and oblivious to the chaos and bustle of the Undercity outside her small apartment. 

“Mmf.”

A hand reached out and scrambled around the table before finding the projector and fumbling with it unsuccessfully.

“Bugger…”

Lena sat up blearily, rubbing sleep from her eyes with one hand as she squinted at the offending piece of technology before switching the alarm off, smiling slightly at the goofy holograph of her with the crew from work. She put it back on the table and glanced forlornly at the bed. 

_ Just a little more sleep… _

She shook her head and yawned. Today was the day, she couldn’t afford to be late.  _ ‘Sides _ , she thought idly as she scratched her bum and stood up,  _ Silas owes me breakfast. _

Fifteen minutes later, Lena was ready and on the way to The Works. She whistled tunelessly as she strolled down the ramp leading up to the first in the chain of Megablocks that connected the Undercity to the Upper Levels, wrinkling her nose at the putrid smell of the garbage that littered the pavements.

It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford to move out of the Undercity - her job at Incom paid her more than enough to afford a reasonable place up in the mid-levels of Coruscant. Lena paused to smile and wave at some Twi’lek and human children playing with a granite slug. It just wouldn’t be the  _ same _ .

Once a Twilighter, always a Twilighter.

* * *

“Oi! Lena! Over here!”

Lena looked up, grinning at the sight of a familiar blue-skinned Rodian waving at her over the crowd. 

“Mornin’ Silas,” she said as she made her way across to him, “I was promised breakfast.”

He made a face and held out a wrapped box. “Yeah, yeah. Here, made you some Vakiir eggs.”

Lena’s eyes widened as she accepted the gift. Native to the Outer Rim planet of Rodia, the eggs were a rare and expensive commodity on Coruscant. 

“Aw man, you shouldn’t have!” she exclaimed, punching him lightly. He shrugged and threw an affectionate arm around her shoulder.

“Buy me a Corellian Red after you get off that ‘wing of yours safely and we’ll call it even. How are you feeling? Nervous?”

“Deal.” She grinned up at him before chewing on her lip with a worried expression. “Yeah, a lil bit. Not everyday you get to fly a teleporting X-Wing, y’know?”

Silas snorted. “It might as well be, once you’re done with today’s flight.”

They came to a stop in front of a pair of big steel doors. Silas looked down at Lena and grinned, pulling her into a bear hug.

“Go get ‘em, Trace.”

She hugged him back before squaring her shoulders and walking through the doors, waving good morning to the people on the floor as she made her way to the testing arena and trying her best to ignore the growing knot of nervousness in her stomach. She ducked into the locker room and tossed the bag beside her, sitting down and closing her eyes as she thought back on the path that had led her to this moment.

_ “Y’hear that Lena? Word has it that Incom’s lookin’ for pilots to test out some crazy teleporting X-Wing.” _

_ Lena snorted as she took another big bite of her Nerf sausage. “So, every X-Wing ever? Hey - ow!” she complained as Alana poked her hard in the side.  _

_ “Smartass,” Alana glared at her and menacingly waved her own sausage around before continuing, “you know that ain’t teleportation. They’re talking about  _ actual  _ teleportation, not hyperspace.” _

_ That got a reaction from Lena, who looked up from her lunch and frowned. “You’re takin’ the piss.” _

_ “Nope.” _

_ “Hrm. You say they’re lookin’ for pilots?” _

That was two years ago. Lena had signed up for Project Slipstream the very next day, and rocketed through the selection process, her skills in the seat of the X-wing unparalleled. From thereon, Incom had run her through countless simulations in state of the art training facilities and gone over every single detail with her - so why did that niggling seed of worry in the back of her mind refuse to go away?

“Ah, Lena. There you are.”

A familiar voice brought her back from her brooding thoughts.

“Hey boss,” she acknowledged, nodding at the Devaronian lead scientist, “she all fired up?”

A low rumble emitted from her chest, which Lena recognized as a chuckle. “Your boss, I am not. A friend, yes. And as for the Slipstream, we are just running a last batch of diagnostics on it. You’ll be good to go shortly. Do you require more time to get ready?”

Lena shook her head and grabbed the wrapped box, opening it and digging into the food. “Nah, I’ll just eat while we wait.” A moment of silence passed between them as Lena chewed on the eggs before she piped up again.

“Say, Krell.”

“Yes?”

She hesitated for a moment. “You ever have that feeling that something  _ somewhere _ is wrong?”

Krell frowned and sat down across Lena, cocking her head to the side. “Do you mean like the Jedi do?”

Lena shook her head. “No, no. Just that feeling that something  _ bad _ is gonna happen.” She gestured helplessly, chewing her lip.

“Ah.” Krell nodded sagely. “You’re nervous.”

“Well… I am, but there’s also this feeling that something’s gonna go awfully wrong, y’know? I’ve been nervous before - heck,” Lena paused and giggled a little at the memory, “you should’ve seen the first time I flew a X-Wing, damn near wrecked the thing. My TI almost dismissed me from the program on the spot. But this… this is different. Iunno, it’s hard to place a finger on it.”

Krell frowned and opened her mouth to reply, only to get cut off by a shrill sound. She pulled out her comlink, reading the message and getting up.

“I am sorry Lena, they require my presence,” she said. “I’m sure you will be fine, it’s probably just nerves. You should get ready.” With that, she walked out of the room, leaving Lena alone with her thoughts and her eggs. 

She shook her head, finishing all but one egg, packing it away for a snack after the flight. Lena walked over to her locker and grabbed her flight gear, carefully stowing away her belongings before changing into the bright orange flight suit and picking up the helmet, running her thumbs over the worn surface and tracing familiar scratches. She tucked it under her arm and mussed her hair with her free hand.

“Alright. Showtime.”

* * *

 

“Tracer to Command. Slipstream is online, all systems are green across the board.”

“Copy. Conditions are clear, set course for Testing Airspace 0012 and maintain hover.”

“Copy that.”

Lena sat back and hummed. “Ready, Alfie?”

The A1-F3 astromech droid chirped an affirmative, making Lena grin. She carefully maneuvered the X-Wing through the gigantic hangar doors and set a course towards the designated coordinates.  

Lena soon found herself staring at the inky blackness as she idled at the edge of the airspace.  _ What a pretty sight _ , she thought as she waited for the go-ahead from command. Space had always fascinated her, and she had jumped at the chance to enlist in the CDF as soon as she was eighteen. The CDF agreeing to her request to sign up for the Slipstream project had come as a surprise, but Lena wasn’t exactly complaining. 

“Tracer. Initiate teleportation matrix. Set target destination at coordinate zero-zero-ten.”

Lena sat up straight and dropped her jaw to engage the comm unit. “Copy.”

She flicked a few switches, keeping an eye on the dials when Alfie beeped and whirred as he dialed the coordinates into the matrix algorithm, waiting for an affirmative chirp before keying her comm again. 

“Coordinates are set and the matrix is green. Waiting on the go ahead.”

“Copy that. Initiate sequence in T minus five… four… three… two… one.”

Lena grabbed the joystick and watched a blue sheen envelop her body and the X-wing. A soft whine filled the air, before a powerful shudder rocked through the craft. She frowned. That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?

“Alfie?”

A series of alarmed beeps and whistles emitted from the droid and a drop of sweat trickled down her brow.

“Command to Tracer, we’re detecting unusual heat signatures from the hyperdrive. Lena, abort sequence!”

“Fuck.” She swore and slammed her hand on the console, frantically trying to key in the kill sequence as the whine intensified into a dull roar and the shuddering made her vision shake. The blue glow grew brighter, almost blindingly so, and with a last wail, the Slipstream disappeared from reality.

* * *

Lena drifted in and out of consciousness, time, and space. Days, months, years passed - she wasn’t sure anymore. One moment she would be back in Coruscant, observing herself enjoying a cold Merlot over cards and podracing broadcasts with her mates, in another she’d be in unfamiliar surroundings, and then just like that, back again in her old stomping grounds, in between the haze of blue nothingness that surrounded her.

It wasn’t only places, she realized after some time (or did time pass at all?), as she watched her eighteen year old self sign up for CDF training corps, before being whisked away to yet another unfamiliar planet. Similarly some places, Lena noticed, she lingered for longer. 

A planet with forests of trees with villages built high above on the branches, teeming with tall, hairy humanoids. 

A bar in the middle of an asteroid minefield, home to outlaws, smugglers, and those with a general disregard of the law. 

A green planet, lush with forests and grasslands, inhabited by proud, fearsome warriors with a vibrant culture and a strong code of honor.

Sometimes, Lena would see ghosts of herself in those places. She latched onto the mystery as a distraction, something that would keep her sane, obsessing over those places whenever the slipstream swept her back into it’s rushing timestream. In reward, she would find herself in those places more often than others. 

Lena devoured those surroundings, memorizing any detail that would help her make sense of time and space. Fifteen years in the past. Two hundred years in the future. 

A male Wookiee - a scientist with a massive treehouse laboratory.

A female Togrutan - a quick witted, charming Alderaani native with an aptitude for spaceship mechanics and a sharp temper.

A female Twi’lek - a beautiful, deadly blue-skinned Mandalorian sniper with scarred lekku and a terrifying scowl.

It was during one of those visits that she felt a sensation that she didn’t normally associate with the Slipstream, a tugging sensation that started at her navel, spreading up to her chest and her limbs. She frowned, opening her mouth to say something before the feeling sucked her away from the desolate Mandalorian landscape and deposited her, and the Slipstream onto the ground with a thud.

“Urgh.” Lena groaned and looked around in a daze. Everything hurt.

Wait.

Pain?

She ignored the pain and sat up with a start, coming to face with a hairy face and a set of bright, curious black eyes behind a pair of spectacles.

“Aaargh!” she shrieked, pushing herself back against the seat of the X-wing.

“Aargh!” the face yelled in a lower octave, recoiling at her reaction.

Lena closed her eyes and counted to five before opening them and cautiously taking stock of familiar surroundings. A thick tree trunk acted as a pillar in the center of the room, and various computer peripherals lined the wooden walls. A bright blue glowing device rested in the corner of the room. Her heart skipped a beat and she poked her head over the edge of the cockpit.

“Hi there!” the Wookiee grinned up from the floor, waggling fingers at her.

Lena blushed and looked down, wincing at the destroyed wooden floor. “Heya! Uh… sorry for dropping in.”

He chuckled and picked himself up from the floor, dusting his fur off before offering a hand to Lena. “It’s okay, I can fix it. I’m Winston.”

She took the large hand in her own and shook it, grinning back. “I’m Lena, and this is Alfie. And I really  _ am _ sorry about the floor.”

Winston grinned as he helped Lena out of the damaged X-Wing before sitting down on a chair and gesturing towards a large chair that she sank into gratefully.

“As I said, it’s not a problem. Though,” he cocked his head, “I am a bit confused as to how exactly you ended up on Kashyyyk, in my room nonetheless.”

“You and me both,” Lena said in a dry voice. “I was testin’ the Slipstream and something went wrong and I ended up… somewhere. A lot of somewheres.” She shivered at the memory of the blue encompassing light before continuing in a haunted voice, “it was like… I wasn’t even there. Just an observer to my own life and places. I… I’d be there and then just  _ gone _ , y’know? It was like I were time travellin’, but couldn’t stick anywhere...”

Winston gazed at her in sympathy. “It’s okay Lena, you don’t have to talk about it. You mentioned ‘Slipstream’?”

“Wot? Oh, yeah! Incom’s teleportation project. Say, do you have a comm I could borrow? I should probably call someone and let ‘em know where I’m at.”

There was a minute of uncomfortable silence. Lena fidgeted and looked at Winston in confusion as he furrowed his brows and got up to kneel beside her.

“I… Lena,” he began, “it’s… It’s been over two hundred years since Incom shut down the Slipstream project.”

Lena stared at him with wide eyes as she absorbed the words. Two hundred…

”No.” She stood up, scowling at the floor. “There’s no way it’s been that long. They would’ve looked for me. They would’ve...” She trailed off, walking over to the computers.

“I’m sorry.” Winston whispered as she looked back at him with tears in her eyes. He opened his arms, a silent offer for a hug, and Lena collapsed into it, finally allowing herself to cry. They stood like that for a long few moments before Lena pulled away, hiccuping slightly and wiping at her eyes.

She looked at Winston and cringed. “M’ sorry,” she said between sniffs, “I’ve made a mess of your room  _ and _ your fur.”

He smiled kindly. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a lot to take in, I understand. Would you like something to eat?”

Lena nodded, and he walked over to a small fridge on the side, pulling out a pie and heating it up before handing it to her. She mumbled her thanks before digging in ravenously.

“So,” Winston said, once again sitting opposite her, “you were time travelling?”

“Yeah, only it were like I wasn’t even there. Like… like I was a ghost or somethin’. One moment I’d be in the past, another the future.”

He let out a low hmm at that, squinting in thought. “I wonder if it was my chronal stabilizer that pulled you back into the time stream. It uses some concepts that the Slipstream project used,” he explained, gesturing at the glowing object in the corner. “If you would be amenable, I’d like to help you and fix the X-Wing and your droid, and hopefully figure out a way to anchor you as well.”

Lena eyed him skeptically. “But why?”

“Why not?”

She stared at him for a long minute before cracking a small smile. “Why not indeed. I’ll agree on the condition that you let me help you fix your floor.”

Winston smiled toothily, the edges of his eyes crinkling. “It’s a deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- I finally did something about this AU _stop looking at me like that Buttons_  
>  \- Space Lesbians! Have all the space lesbians  
> \- Lena's a ball of sad in this one but it gets better I promise. I'm not as evil as some other people. At times.  
> \- You can pry X-Wing ace Lena Oxton from my cold, dead hands.  
> \- Happy May 4th, fuckers.


End file.
